Only the contemptible fear contempt.

Everyone praises his heart, none dare praise their understanding.

The aversion to lying is often a hidden ambition to render our words credible and weighty, and to attach a religious aspect to our conversation.

Women can less easily surmount their coquetry than their passions.

The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken.

Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it merely aims at keeping something that belongs to us or we think belongsto us, whereas envy is a frenzy that cannot bear anything that belongs to others.

Without humility, we keep all our defects; and they are only crusted over by pride, which conceals them from others, and often from ourselves.